Man of action: ‘The Miz’He used to be such a sweet boy, just Mike Mizanin, a regular kid from Parma. Then he went on MTV’s 10th season of “The Real World.”

“It takes your growth and accelerates it by like 20 years,” Mizanin told writer Jim Vickers in our 2002 profile. “I was looking back at my casting tape the other day, and I thought, Wow, what a dumbass.”

His controversial personality on the show paved the way for Mizanin’s career: more and more reality spin-offs. It was while traversing the world of reality-based entertainment that Mizanin discovered his “inner Miz”: a raw, primal side of his personality. His next stop, naturally, was wrestling school.

Now a member of WWE’s Extreme Championship Wrestling, the self-proclaimed chick magnet is currently wrestling his way across the country in hopes of winning an ECW world championship. His “real world” now includes a WWE action figure “Miz” doll and a home in West Hollywood, but, he says, “It’s still always a real blast coming back home and hanging out with all my friends in Cleveland.”